Every situation we encounter has a result and sometimes the outcome is better or worse than we want. This can lead to experiencing emotional highs and lows that make life feel like a roller coaster.

The exercise “The Two Ends of the Stick” is a great way to maintain an equilibrium in our attitude and thus avoid the highs and lows that often result due to our reactions to what occurred.

Here is a real-life example with someone I did this exercise with. Alexia had heard that her boss had sold the business and she was worried that she would lose her status as assistant director or worse, lose her job.

I asked her to imagine the best possible outcome and the worst. Her best possible outcome was that she would get a promotion with greater authority and pay. The worst case was she would lose her job and have financial difficulty. She was feeling a lot of stress.

It turned out that the business was purchased by a company that was international and she would be getting a promotion with better pay.

Try out this exercise for yourself and see what it does for you. I have for a marketing program I launched, and it worked. The program flopped but I had imagined much worse than the actual outcome. So instead of quitting I modified the program and will see how it works out soon. I did feel that doing this exercise before launching my project did help with my expectations. Here is the link to the audio podcast on Spotify that walks you through the exercise. You can also listen directly below.